Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord: Chapter 2: Sinister Schemes
What is it ? : Maul and his team grab Devon Izara and Looti Vario, escaping from the Police station until they are confronted by the police headed by Captain Brander Lawson. Maul uses the Force to break a nearby bridge, so the Police must focus their efforts on saving those in danger, allowing Maul to escape, and the police are aided by Jedi Master Eeko-Dio Daki how hold the bridge up using the Force so the people can be rescued, before he disappears again.
The next day at the station Lawson is confronted by a superior, who wants to know why he hasn't informed the Empire as to Mauls presence, but Lawson tells her that he doesn't want the Empire to lock the planet down, so she allows him to continue.
Meanwhile Maul puts Vario and Izara in cells, telling Izara that she has been indoctrinated her entire life, and must learn to adapt.
Lawson briefly returns home to his son, whose mother has been in touch, but Lawson tells him to wait until Lawson has more time, and then gets called back to the station while his son looks at a photograph of the family together.
Maul interrogates Vario for information on the Pykes, and Vario agrees to help, while Lawson visits a contact who he has good relationship with and she tells him of Mauls Shadow Collective which was formed from merging Dark Sun, Crimson Dawn, and the Pykes, and she invites Lawson to stay for dinner.
Maul visits Izara, and tries to convince her to let him show her another pathway to power, but she remains convinced of the Jedi principles of justice, and Maul leaves her telling her that if there were more Jedi like her then the galaxy would not be in it's present state. But she tells him that he should stop pretending that he cares.
Later a Pyke ship is about to jump to hyperspace when Maul has his droid sabotage it, causing it to land, and Maul boards it slaughtering the crew.
As he goes about his duties, Lawson realises that he is being followed, but when he spins around the figure is gone, but is revealed to the viewer that it was Jedi Master Eeko-Dio Daki.
Maul visits Izara again, telling her it is time for her to see the Galaxy as it really is, but after he leaves she realises that her cell isn't secure, and uses the Force to push open the end, allowing her to escape. . . .
High Points : Captain Lawson remains the high point of this episode, we get introduced to his son, and that he is a single parent, we see that he has a flirtatious and close relationship with at least one of his contacts, and that he's a rule breaking cop who is trusted by his superiors. I would watch the hell out of a Star Wars police procedural based around Lawson, as it's something new and interesting.
Low Points : While Maul doesn't impress me ever with his wit and cunning (yes he can be a brutal weapon, as he was in the end of Clone Wars, but he's not smart), but he makes the most stupid plan I've ever seen. He plans to shape Izara into a weapon, which he thinks he can turn on Sidious to destroy him. Despite having, along with his brother, been shaped as weapons since birth, had Nightsister alchemy used to strengthen and harden their bodies, and then as a team faced off against Sidious and lasted only minutes before he killed Savage Opress and captured Maul. Maul should be planning to hide from Sidous, to use his talents as a stalker and hunter to avoid being tracked down by Sidious, Vader and the Inquisitors. His plan should be to survive the Empire, not defeat it.
So what do you really think ? : Another really solid episode, but as should be obvious, I'm not into the Maul storyline at all, we know how it ends, we know that the Shadow Collective will be destroyed before Maul encounters Ezra, and that his plans whatever they are come to nothing with him remaining a crimelord through to the time of Solo. But Captain Lawson we know nothing of, and I'd rather see a single police detective investigating crimes and making a difference on a small level, that watching a galactic scale villain have no effects on the galaxy at all.
Final Words : I haven't mentioned the animation, which remains outstanding, and the planet Janix is a really great setting, a city planet not quite on the scale of Coruscant, but not far off. It is covered with towers, although I don't think it has an undercity, and the towers in many places look like 21st century earth ones, tall but not colossal, and we get landspeeders on roads rather than it all being airspeeders, big but still recognisable.
Score : 9/10
Comments made about this Article!
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09/Apr/2026 11:35:43
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Posted by josejay00@gmail.com
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On one level, Maul is making the same mistake the early Rebels did. I think it was in the book Lords of the Sith, or maybe the last of the Republic Commandos, where Palpatine mentioned that the various Rebel factions biding their time works in his favor. Had they attacked almost from the beginning, the Empire might not have survived. On the other hand, the galaxy and the Rebel groups at large know him as Palpatine. Only Maul, a few surviving Jedi, and a scant few others knew that he was really the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. Or considering he's the master, maybe I should call him Sith Master. That changes things as far as Maul and those few others are concerned.
I guess Lawson takes after Axel Foley, Dirty Harry, and Elliot Stabler - they may take down the bad guys, but they have no problems breaking a few rules or doing things their own way to do that. Although I think in Dirty Harry's and possibly Elliot Stabler's cases, they're willing to dish out their own form of justice, and with that kind of justice, there's no chance of a mistrial, not guilty verdict, early parole, or escape. Their form of justice ensures the creep NEVER hurts anyone ever again. And I'm convinced Anakin Skywalker shared the same thoughts, especially towards Nute Gunray, even before he became Darth Vader. That was probably how justice was carried out on Tatooine. He grew up with that, and he came to accept it. And in some cases, it's better or at least more effective than the kind of justice Padmé believed in.
Lawson's also smart. Between the two, he sees the Empire as the greater evil and more imminent threat. He wants to keep things at a low profile so he doesn't get the Empire's attention. That'll make things worse for everyone.
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